(Newser)
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First she endured the horror of being raped under a bridge. Then the 47-year-old homeless woman took walks as long as 8 miles in Columbus, Ohio, to attend several court hearings for her attacker—who pleaded guilty and got 3 years in prison, the Columbus Dispatch reports. "He didn’t get as much time as I thought he should, but he’s getting his due justice," says the woman, who's unnamed by the Dispatch and the AP. The rapist, Paul Hubert, 54, also has to register every 90 days as a sex offender for his entire life. "I just have to have these feelings for the rest of my life," the woman says. "I only have to report to myself." She says that on March 12 last year she woke up under the E. Broad Street bridge to discover she was being raped.

Hubert repeatedly hit her on the head, she says, and forced her to have sexual intercourse before he ran away. The woman got to a convenience store and told a clerk to call the cops, who matched DNA on her body to Hubert using a statewide database. Hubert initially claimed he'd paid the woman for sex, but ended up copping a plea when it was clear she planned to testify. Hubert "was counting on her not showing up" in court, says a detective. "If it wasn’t for her cooperation, he would have walked." The county prosecutor explained that her persistence made all the difference: "She always got here, no matter what her circumstances," he says. Homeless for two years now, the woman says she plans to find permanent housing.